The Hall of Faith part 2

Reading about people in the Hall of Faith is always encouraging. It also helps us because it tells us exactly what faith is. Heb 11:1–2 —Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. *This is what the ancients were commended for. * Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don't see..... What do we hope for? Really?

If we're honest, don't we hope our children will grow up and be productive, responsible citizens that make us proud of them? Don't we hope for grandchildren to love and cherish? Don't we hope for things like enough money to pay the bills or go on vacation, or to buy a car? For food, new clothes, a new computer or Kindle Fire, or maybe a piano or motorcycle? Perhaps a great Christmas for our kids or grandkids, or a godly loving spouse for our child. We hope we can pay our taxes, have a better president, health care, less pain, better health, a good paying job that we actually like, and all kinds of things don't we?

In fact, that very same false teaching we discussed before, the prosperity gospel even encourages us to hope for those things and "claim" them, saying that God will then give them to us. But if we look at the folks in the Hall of fame, what did they hope for? Did they "claim" things like that? No! Does God ever encourage us to? No, He tells us the opposite. Not only did they not hope for or claim things like that, some even left those kind of things behind for God. So once again the Bible shows us how false that kind of teaching is.

We like to know where we're going and what we're going to do, and yet these folks often didn't know those things and some of them that did know, knew they were going into some pretty scary places. What would make someone do that? Only one thing really....love. It reminds me of Ruth who loved her mother in law so much that she gave up literally everything in order to go with her back to Israel. A place she didn't know at all, that was full of strange customs and strange people. Because she loved Naomi though, she went and wound up falling in love with God and Boaz and becoming the ancestor of our Lord.

But how did she learn to love God and how did she know what to be sure of so she could hope for it? In her case, her mother in law, her husband (that died) and later Boaz taught her about Him. Not only did they teach her in words, but their lives taught her as well. Once she got to Israel, I'm sure many of the people she met and became friends with also taught her both with their lives and with words. Naomi would have known the scriptures since childhood as would her sons and of course Boaz, and would have taught her those.

Unfortunately for us though, that's rare to find now days. But then the Lord told us it would be. God warned us it would be like this. That false teachers and false prophets would abound and lead many astray from Him and those who weren't led astray that way, would desire the world more then Him and so would have false teachers that would preach the world's ways instead of His ways. Reading 2 Timothy 3:1-9 gives us a good picture of many Christians in our day. None of them love the Lord. None of them have faith or can be sure of what they hope for, because the things they hope for are like the things I mentioned above. While the people in the hall of fame hoped for the Lord, not to free them from political enemies like the Jew's of Jesus' time, not to give them money or fame or power, or prestige. Not even to get good spouses for their children or whatever. I'm not saying they didn't want their children to marry well or anything like that, I'm saying those weren't things they hoped for. Those were things they did their best about and just went on with their lives because they knew the best was yet to come.

How do we love the Lord with all our hearts, minds and strength, with a love so strong it makes us long to be with Him? I'm afraid that some aren't going to like the answer, but the truth is, it's through studying His Word with Him daily. It's through His Word and talking to Him that we learn about Him; that we learn who He really is, what He's like. It's how our love for Him grows. See, first He loves us and pours His love into our hearts so that we can have the capacity to love Him. Then, as we study His Word with Him, that love for Him grows and expands. It changes us too.

It's similar to a human relationship. If you were to meet someone and fall in love with them and then never see them again, or talk to them or hear from them again, eventually your love would grow cold and die. I've thought of it this way: An abused child rarely knows or understands what love is. They have to be gently and carefully shown and taught about true love for quite a while before they begin to understand it and react to it in any way other then distrust. Aren't we all really abused children? Not by our parents necessarily, but by Satan, our own flesh and the world? Our choice then is to remain abused children, reacting to everyone and everything in our lives out of that abuse; or to latch on to God and His love for us and learn what true love really is; and then eventually to react to everyone and everything in our lives out of that true love.

That's really how the whole world is isn't it? A world full of abused children, continuing to abuse each other, except for the few who've been truly saved and are being gently shown and taught each day by God about His love through His Word. As they learn, they're changed, and become more and more like Him. The more they learn about Him, and His love, the more their love for Him grows. Because they are being taught by Him from His Word, they know that what they're learning is True and that they can be sure of it.

As we learn about Him from the old and new testament, our love becomes so strong that we can even rejoice when going through trials and hard times, just like those in the Hall of faith. This is why Peter says, 1 Peter 1:8–9 —Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, *for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. *

Part of the problem in our world is that the world teaches us lies even about love itself, so that we don't even know what love really is until God begins to teach us from His Word. That's also why He wants us to study His Word and not someone else's word. Someone else may teach us what the world says, like the prosperity people do, but if we study His Word daily, we'll discover the truth not only about Him but about love as well. If we're to have faith, then we must study His Word for that's where faith comes from: Rom 10:17 —Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. * and we know too that without faith, we can't please Him, which makes it even more important to do.

I guess we should also touch more on what faith really is for there is more then one kind of faith, but there is only one kind that saves. When Jesus tells us to "believe", He's telling us to trust Him. That's what's lacking in other kinds of faith. Demons believe and know He is God and they even submit to His Word when He speaks to them, and do so faster then we do for the most part. When we believe and trust Him though, then and only then, are we changed - our lives are changed. That's the kind of faith that saves. That's why Jesus told us to look and see what kind of fruit the person's life showed to determine if they were saved or not. We're frequently told that we were saved to do good works and that God prepared those works for us before creation even. So we see that the works themselves don't save us, it's our faith that saves us and the works or the "fruit" is the evidence of our salvation. It helped me to understand it by realizing that dead faith only touched the mind or intellect and demonic faith touched the mind and emotions, but true faith involves all of us. It touches our minds, our hearts and our wills. True, saving faith leads to obedience which results in good works. By "good works" I don't mean just helping out in a soup kitchen and feeding the poor, although that's certainly one, but works can include many things. The first thing we do in obedience is start studying His Word with Him regularly. (well, that's usually the first thing) Another is being baptized in obedience to Him. Each sin we repent from (meaning we stop doing it) is a "good work", and so on.

Many people seem to have the wrong idea of what studying with Him daily entails. It does not mean that you have to have commentaries or dictionaries or other theology books. It does not mean that you must spend hours every day studying. ALL you need is God and a bible. That's it. As for time spent, that's best determined by each individual and the Lord. It can be 15 minutes if that's really all you have or a half an hour a day, or more. There simply is no "right amount of time" to spend studying with Him. As far as how to study with Him and what that means, it simply means reading your bible and while you're reading it, talking to Him about what you're reading. Asking Him questions, making comments, etc. Just as though the two of you were sitting and reading together - because, in reality, you are! You'll be amazed at how much and how quickly you're learn that way. There simply is no better teacher then the Lord. After all, it IS His Word I honestly didn't have anything other then the Lord and my bible for many years when I started studying with Him either.

I can guarantee you that if we do that, our love for the Lord will grow and grow until we too will truly long for the Lord. When we get to that point, the unsaved sit up and take notice. Because then we're not concerned so much about the things of this world. They mean very little to us and seem to mean even less with each passing day. We'll no longer grieve as the unsaved do either for we'll be sure of what we hope and long for. And we won't be at all afraid of death, not even of pain before death. We'll be like children who've been promised some fantastic gift if we'll let the doctor give us a shot. Our minds won't be on the injection, we'll be excitedly thinking of finally seeing our Lord! And when someone asks us what we hope for, the very first thing that will come to our minds will be being with our Lord, for we'll know that there simply isn't anything or anyone that could possibly be better then that. We'll realize that His love is so fantastic, so amazing, and so far surpasses anything or even anyone this world could offer, that we can't imagine considering anything else. Yes, Heaven is going to be great and I know that the Lord is preparing things so wonderful for us that we can't even begin to imagine them. But you know what? I know that's true, because I know that's just how my Lord is, and while I know I'll enjoy all He's preparing for us, that's really secondary to finally being with Him.

Knowing Him and His love, has changed me radically and I still have much to learn of both. The way of faith - being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (trust) - is the way of victory, peace, assurance, joy and endurance.
Yep. I'm homesick. I want my Daddy!

Let me quote the parts from Hebrews that are especially about all this, but I'd also suggest studying the whole chapter with the Lord when you have time. You won't regret it!

Hebrews 11:9–10 —By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. *For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. *

Hebrews 11:13–16 —All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. *People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. *If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. *Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. *

 

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The Hall of Faith

Hebrews 11 is often called "the hall of faith" and is one of my favorite chapters, especially when I need encouragement. It reminds me of so very much.

One of the first things it reminds me of is that God has set us apart from the rest of this world. It's more then that though. While it's quite true that God has called us to be separate from the world, we obviously still have to live in it. In Hebrews 11:13–16, as in other places, He tells us how we're to do that, what our frame of mind is to be. After all, we grow up used to thinking of this earth as our home and we know that the only way to change a habit is to replace it with a different one. Here God tells us what we're to replace that habit of thinking with.

Instead of thinking of this world as our home, we're to consider Heaven, New Jerusalem, our home. He says that we're not only to think of it as our home, but we're to "long for it". That chapter in Hebrews shows us more then 16 different people who longed for their real home instead of some great mansion on earth, and some of the terrible hardships they suffered while they were here.

Now that doesn't exactly sound comforting does it? The hardships part I mean. But it really is in a couple of ways. First, it confirms for us that people of faith (for that's what these people are commended for) DO go through horrible hardships. It lets us know that the prosperity gospel's teaching that hardships are caused by lack of faith is way off base. Therefore we don't have to wonder or worry that our own faith is lacking because of the hardships we go through. I haven't seen or heard of a single prosperity preacher who's faith was anywhere near that of any of the folks named in this chapter, and yet they hold themselves up as examples. God's Word doesn't lie though, we know we can trust it, and His Word tells us that no matter how much faith you have, hardships, trials, sickness, death, and sorrow, will come your way. It's quite a comfort and very freeing to know that according to God, these things don't happen to us because of lack of faith.

There's another lesson in these hardships they faced for us too. We notice that it wasn't the hardships that caused them to yearn after their heavenly Home. That surprised me at first, but if you read it carefully, and you study the OT that tells about each of them, you find that they all yearned for their real homes before there was any hardship to cause it. So they weren't just longing to escape their troubles here and that's a major thing to consider. If they weren't longing for that, then what were they longing for that Home for?

The only way I know of to determine things like that, besides studying their lives, is to ask myself, why I'd get homesick at times when I was away from home as a child. That was easy...I wasn't longing for the house, or my toys, I wanted my Mom and Dad! And that, my friends, is what these folks were longing for: they longed for their heavenly Father and their Savior. "Home" was where He was!
There is a danger here that we need to be aware of though. I've heard of orphans who would feel "homesick" although they'd never had a real home that they could remember. What they were really homesick for was what for them was an "ideal" of what they thought home would be like-generally the opposite of what they'd experienced and usually not anything like the reality of what even the best homes are like. There are abused women who are heartbroken when their husband who's been abusing them leaves them. They think it's because they love their husband and he doesn't love them anymore, but he never did really love them, so why all of a sudden are the heart broken? It's because they no longer have the chance of the dream of the ideal marriage with them that they wanted. It's the dream or ideal that's gone; the reality certainly isn't worth being heartbroken over. There's a real danger of that with the Lord too.

We need to be sure that we're like those people who are mentioned in the hall of faith, that we truly love the Lord and not just our idea of who He is. You see, our ideas won't hold up under the pressure of severe trials, hardship and disappointment, but the real Lord will. We need to be sure that our faith and love is for the Lord and that we know Him well.

When we look at the people in the hall of faith, we see that they didn't even get what was promised and yet they still loved Him and their faith was still strong. That's the kind of love and faith we need to have. When they longed for their real Home and for the Lord, it wasn't for some pie in the sky made up mansion they'd dreamed up, but they longed to be with the God of Israel, who they knew well and thought of with great love.

It always reminds me of Daniel's 3 friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when the King threatened to throw them in the furnace. They told him that while their God could save them, that they would worship Him and only Him, even if He chose not to save them! Now that's faith! More, that's love! And that's the kind of faith and love all the people mentioned in the hall of faith had. Daniel and his friends were really still kids when this happened. They were perhaps around 18 years old. Can you imagine an 18 year old today that would love the Lord and trust Him that much?

When we compare our lives to those in the Hall of faith, we often don't see the love, faith, joy or hope demonstrated in our own lives. When we look at ourselves and at others at church, we often don't see many who obviously truly long to be with the Lord, and don't know anything about New Jerusalem or Heaven. How can that be when we have an even greater reason for it then they did?

That's actually a sign of the times we live in. I don't say that to excuse it, for it's still inexcusable, but only as a fact that the Lord knew this would happen before He returned. Thankfully there is a "cure" for it though. I'll talk about all this in my next post.

 

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